For All We're Worth
by Mars Scriver
Summary: "We've never managed, either one of us, to get all the way into life." Sequel to Worth All the World. Fem!Shep/Garrus Romance. Rated M for strong language & adult themes.
1. Spring

I'm so glad that you've decided to return! Here's a small gift for you: bit. ly /enJzDX

This story is a sequel to my story Worth All the World Without a Price, so if you haven't read it already, please go do so! The title is pulled from _The Sheltering Sky_ by Paul Bowles.

When there's nothing left you burn, you've got to set yourself on fire. - Torquil Campbell

**Prologue: Spring**

When Garrus entered the apartment it was empty. The other men were gone, out to drink, or see family, to pretend they were normal for just one evening. He was, he had to admit, more than a bit jealous. There was no semblance of normalcy in his life anymore. His life was dictated by the constant burning red of Omega's perpetual, violent twilight. It was enough to drive a person mad. No wonder everyone on this shit hole was crazy.

The kitchen was a mess when he stumbled in, but he was not in the mindset to clean it. Grasping at the cupboard doors, he dug through them until he found the heaviest cast iron pan he could, slamming it down on the stove and turning the burner on to high. He searched the drawers, the cupboards and every other corner of that kitchen to gather what he needed. His foot slipped, briefly, on a small pool of blood, a wordless signal to hurry.

Clippers, a little rusty at the hinge but still sharp. A clean towel, some tape and whiskey. Oh, yes, whiskey.

He placed them on the floor in front of the stove, his leg almost giving out as he lowered himself to the ground.

Other leg, he thought, put weight on your other leg.

He carefully removed his boot, making sure to move slowly around the calf. He stripped off his spats, hissing as it tore off a small line of partially healed skin along with it. Blue blood ran freely from the fresh wound as he positioned his leg to see the damage more clearly.

He swore freely. The sight of it made him more than a little light headed. Or maybe it was all the blood loss.

He swore again. It wouldn't have happened if he had been paying attention. If he hadn't been thinking about her.

He took a swig of whiskey, then poured some on the clippers. Large ones, meant for hedges, likely. Why anyone had hedge clippers on Omega was beyond him- there were no damn plants here.

Then it occurred to him- they had probably been purchased to clip limbs, not hedges. He poured some more alcohol over the blades.

He took another look at his spur, touched it delicately. What had subsided to a dull throb suddenly turned into fire at contact. He sucked in his breath and forced himself to pull his leg up, to position it where he could keep it steady. Lightning shot through his muscles as he confirmed what was expected- his poor spur, a genetic leftover from before turians were at the top of the food chain, was barely hanging on. Only skin and one measly piece of bone kept it connected to his leg.

He picked up the whiskey, poured some onto the area to disinfect it as best he could, then drank a bit. He poured some onto his hand and reached back, over his shoulder, flicking it onto the pan. He listened- silence. Not time yet.

It would probably heal, he thought. With time and care, the skin would grow again, the bones would knit. It might be a bit lopsided but it would be there still.

But time he didn't have. He couldn't be hobbling around on a bum leg, careful of any movement that might disturb the wound, even for a few days. It would have to go.

He thought back to the incident. He hadn't been paying attention and wandered into Talons territory with only a sidearm. The little buggers were just a small gang but they were definitely a nuisance. Petty theft, moving red sand, small-scale stuff in comparison to Eclipse or the Blue Suns, but large enough to fall onto his radar. And now they were using animal traps, one of which he'd stepped into after jumping over some debris.

The thing about animal traps was that you were supposed to use them against creatures that didn't know how to get back out of them again. It'd only taken him a few seconds to figure out how to unlock it, then another to reset it and throw it at the head of the nearest turian in gang colours. The momentary confusion allowed him to pull himself up a nearby fire escape to safety.

The oven door was uncomfortable but he leaned against it while he waited anyway. He closed his eyes.

/-/

_One Year Earlier._

"If you could have anything in the universe right now, what would it be?"

Liara posed the question as the crew sat around the mess of the SR-1. They had finished work for the day and were waiting on one more shipment before they did final inspections and headed out to the Terminus systems.

"Another beer," Garrus responded as he eyed his empty bottle.

Adams, who was closest to the fridge, grinned and tossed him another bottle. Garrus caught it mid-air.

"So now that Garrus' deepest desires have been satisfied-" Liara eyed the turian as he opened the new bottle.

He shrugged, "I'm easy to please."

"-What about the rest of you?"

There were uncomfortable murmurs from around the table. Garrus looked at Shepard, seated to his left. She shrugged, he chuckled.

"And why is this important?" one of the bridge crew, Emerson, asked.

"I'm curious," Liara argued. "I enjoy learning these things about people."

"Does it have to be an object, or can it be an abstract concept?" Alenko piped up from where he was seated, directly across from Shepard.

Liara thought a moment, "something physical, that you can use."

"So I can't say universal peace and a swift death to the reapers?"

"Boring." Garrus scoffed.

"At least I'm thinking of others and not just myself." Kaiden shot back.

Ugh, Garrus thought, here we go.

"But you see, if there were universal peace and no more threat of reaper attack, we would all find ourselves very suddenly out of a job." he motioned around the room.

"So you think that war is a good thing? Just because you wouldn't be able to find another job?" Alenko furrowed his eyebrows at the turian. "And what gives you-"

"Okay," Shepard called, raising her voice above the lieutenant's. "Let's not turn this into an argument, you two."

"But, Commander-"

"Alenko, I said stand down," she ordered.

An uncomfortable silence fell as Alenko shut his mouth and sat back in his chair, eyeing Garrus with disdain. Garrus knew what he was thinking- the biotic had been extremely vocal in the past about his dislike for the friendship between him and Shepard, despite being told, several times, that it spanned several years and had started well before Kaiden and Shepard had even met.

Funny, Kaiden didn't seem to mind that Shepard and Liara had grown close, or Shepard and Tali. Hell, even Shepard and Wrex didn't bother Kaiden.

Just Garrus.

He smirked, just a bit.

Jealous prick.

When Garrus first boarded the Normandy, it had been easy to hide the details of their friendship, and just how close they had been. During missions, the two of them were completely focused on the task at hand. But when the crew had started going out as a group, cooking up lunch together, and having the morning coffee together, the inside jokes and old stories started to slip. It was about the time Garrus mentioned when Lina had crane-kicked his asari stalker in the crotch protectively that the rest of the ship realized that they had been more than passing acquaintances in the past. Some details were divulged (although the more… complicated moments were not), and surprisingly their comrades took it rather well.

Most of the crew members anyway, the lieutenant was not among them.

And now there he was, sitting across from the commander staring down his turian rival.

Garrus lifted his bottle to him, stupid smirk planted on his face.

Liara attempted to save the conversation, and by proxy, the previously light atmosphere in the room.

"What about you, Commander?" the young asari turned to her. "Anything in the universe?"

"Honestly?" Shepard played with her drink- some icy blue concoction that Chakwas had brought out from the med bay to share with the small crew. "A bath."

The room fell into silence again, then a few people chuckled.

"I'm serious," she smiled. "I've been surviving on showers for far too long. I would like to be selfish in this scenario and say that I want a nice, long, relaxing bath."

She waited a moment before adding, "with bubbles."

Liara hummed as she thought.

"But it's the act of bathing that you desire, not the bath itself."

"I desire a bath tub, full of water, in which to bathe," Shepard parried. "An object to use as I see fit."

"Just as I don't desire the bottle of beer for its aesthetic qualities," Garrus added. "I want to drink it."

Liara shrugged, "I suppose, yes, you're right."

Shepard smirked and made a few quips about always being right. Garrus kicked her under the table. She kicked him back.

The group continued to talk for a few minutes longer, revealing some personal details about the crew that Garrus didn't exactly want to know, when Shepard's omni-tool beeped. She checked the message.

"Final shipment's ready," she shot back the last of her drink and stood. "Garrus, come help me bring it to the ship?"

"Sure," he replied, pushing his newly empty bottle away and standing from the table. He caught the look on Alenko's face as he stood and couldn't help but smile to himself as he followed Shepard to the airlock.

Shepard did a small dance to the muzak in the docks elevator, occasionally bumping her hip to his. He chuckled. She was a bit tipsy, he could tell.

He loved her like this. She was relaxed, more fun, more like…

… More like Lina. Less Shepard.

They took a taxi to the port where their shipment was to arrive. All they had to do was inspect the articles and approve them before allowing them to move onto the docks. Out the window, they could see the damage from their last fight, only a few weeks earlier. What the locals were now calling 'The Battle for the Citadel'. What Lina referred to as 'the day she wished she could see the look on the turian councillor's face when he realized that yes Saren was evil and she had kicked his ass from here to the Perseus Veil'.

The Battle for the Citadel was shorter.

The extent of the damage was hard to judge from how fast they passed through the wards, but the effect was still strong. The Citadel was devastated, and it was Shepard's job to stop the reapers before they did the same to Earth.

"I'm sorry if you misunderstood," the volus shopkeep took a large breath between sentences. "I said your shipment is _nearly_ ready. It will take another hour or so until it is ready for inspection."

Shepard strained to keep herself from hitting the small alien in front of her. She felt a taloned hand on her shoulder and calmed herself, crossing her fingers as she stood a little more straight.

"If all of the parts are here, why can't we inspect them now?" she asked.

"We must verify they are authentic, of course," the volus responded. "And check the serial numbers against our orders. It's all for stock control, Commander."

"Of course," Shepard gave him an annoyed look and checked the time on her omni-tool. "I'll be back in _one_ hour. If my shipment isn't ready by then, so help you, I'll-"

"One hour," Garrus repeated as he grabbed his commander by the elbow and pulled her away.

She was swearing under her breath as they stepped back onto the public walk.

"Not ready, my ass," she muttered. "Crooked volus probably saw something he liked and wanted to play with it."

"Now, now," Garrus mused along next to her. "Just because he's volus doesn't mean he's crooked. Even though we can't see the faces he's making at us behind the mask."

Shepard chuckled, shoving her hands into the pockets of her jacket. In casual clothes, the two of them blended easily into the crowds. Passersby didn't give her a second glance, despite her recent title of 'Hero of the Citadel'. No one recognized her, and that suited him just fine.

"So back to the ship then?"

"What's the rush?" he asked. "It's half an hour there and back, we might as well stay here."

"And where would we go?" she raised an eyebrow. "We aren't twenty-something with a bottle of booze anymore, so the park's out of the question."

"Well," he started, slowing his pace. "My apartment is near here. We could go there."

"Oh?" she smirked and slowed in time with him. "What's your motivation to getting me alone at your apartment, hm? What's your place got that mine don't?"

He grinned.

"A bath tub."

\-\

Lina sunk back into the tub, the foamy water enveloping her skin as she attempted to escape the cold. The apartment, though far more swanky than their old home, was cold, and the air stale from months of disuse. Luckily, there was still hot water, so as Garrus worked on getting his home to a bearable temperature, Shepard relaxed in the tub.

She pushed one leg up in the air, partially to admire the way it magically disappeared into the bubbles, partially to check that the scented water wasn't doing any damage to the healing wound on her calf. She gingerly swatted away a few suds and furrowed her eyebrows.

"Hey, Garrus?" she called, her voice echoing against the walls. "Do you have any medigel?"

"Uh," his voice came from behind the door. "I think so, but-"

"But?"

"It's, er, in there," he replied.

Shepard eyed the cabinet across the room. The bathroom was small but the cabinet doors were still just out of reach from the tub. She threw her head back and laughed.

"Well then come in here and get it for me," she called back. "I am not getting out of the tub."

Some uncomfortable groaning came from the other side of the door and Shepard rolled her eyes. She ducked further beneath the bubbles.

"I'm covered up, and even if I wasn't, it's nothing you haven't seen before," she said. "Remember those two years we lived together? My bras hanging everywhere?"

There was silence for a moment before he replied.

"I do remember the bras," he replied. "And you showing me your boobs once when you were drunk."

"See? It's nothing new," she smirked.

With a hiss, the door opened, and the turian's head peeked around the corner. Shepard waggled her eyebrows, visible just over the bubbles. He grinned, shook his head with a chuckle, and opened the cabinet. He pulled out a medigel pack and passed it to her.

"Hey, I'm all slippery, you do it," she lifted her leg out of the water again. "That's an order, soldier."

He sighed and ripped the lid off of the canister. Kneeling down, he grabbed her leg, wiping off the bubbles before he lightly pressed the injector into her skin. She inhaled sharply as the needle pierced her, but sighed when he pressed down on the plunger and the gel worked its magic on her sore leg.

"So, tell me," she started as he lowered her leg back into the water. "Why is it that a grown turian male who has never been known to take a bath in his life, so conveniently keeps a bottle of bubble bath in his bathroom?"

"Truthfully?" Garrus sat on the ground next to the tub, leaning on the lip.

"Please," she replied.

"It's yours," he replied. "I never threw it out after you left."

"Bullshit," Shepard laughed. "You hate clutter!"

"Honestly," he chuckled. "It's been here for five years."

"How did you not go insane looking at it?" she leaned forward, eager to hear this. "We lived together for two years and it always drove you nuts having my things around. You not only left it in the bathroom to collect dust, but you also brought it with you when you moved to this place?"

"Twice," he corrected. "I moved twice after you left."

"Why twice?"

"Well, the second apartment wasn't much better than the first," he explained, dipping a talon into the bath water. "The neighbour apparently had a red sand lab in his kitchen, which was not good."

"So it was at that point that you decided to move out of the ghetto?" she asked, then raised an eyebrow as she added, "Of the Citadel? Which is actually much nicer than most places on Earth?"

He chuckled, "Basically. I'm not 20 anymore, and I had a decent job at one point."

"So you decided to grow up, hm?" she mused.

"Begrudgingly," he sighed.

Shepard smiled. Garrus smiled back.

"That still doesn't explain why you have five-year-old bubble bath kicking around." she grinned.

He gathered some bubbles on his wandering talon and pressed them onto the end of her nose.

"Let's just say that you never know when a pretty girl will need to take a bubble bath in your apartment," he smirked and stood. "Are you relaxed yet?"

"Very," she replied, wiping the bubbles from her nose.

"Alright, I'm going to tackle whatever is growing in my refrigerator," he said, heading toward the door. "There's an odd smell coming from that part of the apartment."

Shepard bit her lip, "Please stay? I feel like it's been so long since we've had a chance to talk like this."

He stopped, considered the now-sentient leftovers that had likely been conquering the fridge since he left almost four months earlier. Her face, however, convinced him otherwise. He sat back down.

The fridge could wait a while longer.

He placed a hand on the edge of the tub to steady himself and Shepard immediately intertwined her fingers with his.

"I'm glad to have you here," she said, squeezing his fingers.

He smirked and squeezed her fingers back. She leaned forward, brushing her forehead to his.

"With great sincerity," she mumbled, emulating the elcor habit of speaking their emotional tone. "I'm so very grateful to have you here with me."

He pushed his forehead into hers a bit more.

"Always."

/-/

The pan sizzled violently when he flicked the whiskey onto it- it was hot enough now. He took another shot to ready himself and paused momentarily to calm his breathing.

Funny, he hadn't realized how hard he'd been shaking.

He positioned his materials all around him, stopping momentarily to examine the injury once again, then poured some more alcohol on it. It wasn't a perfect setup but it would have to do, considering the time restraints he was under. The trap had been rusty, and he had to get the wound bandaged fast before infection set in.

What the hell were Talons doing using animal traps anyway? And just how the hell had he not noticed the damn thing? Not until it sliced through his boot and fractured his spur.

"Fuck," he muttered, straightening his leg slowly and positioning the blades of the clippers around the remaining bone and tendon.

He took a few deep breaths.

Stop living in the past, he thought. She's dead, and if you're not careful, you will be, too.

He checked the position of his materials once more, tested that he could reach the frying pan. He knew that he was moving about nervously just to put it off, but whenever he looked at the clippers again his stomach did flips.

He closed his eyes, imagined Shepard's voice giving him the order.

One more breath to steady himself.

He pushed the handle of the clippers down.

\-\

"You have got to be kidding me," Garrus muttered, running his hand over his fringe.

"I'm sorry Mr. Vakarian but it's a stipulation of your lease," the salarian on the vid screen responded. "If you're unemployed for more than six weeks and not collecting any sort of compensation or assistance, the tenant's association has the right to vote to evict you."

Garrus swore in his local dialect, cursing the uppity bourgeois he shared his apartment building with. He sat in his quarters, having finally responded to the message that his salarian lawyer, Cabel Takine, had sent to him weeks ago.

"I'm not unemployed," Garrus replied, switching back to the common language.

"The fact is that you hastily quit your job at C-Sec to take one at a much smaller pay," Takine picked up a datapad and perused it before continuing. "And frankly, the information you've given me is dubious at best. I'm not even sure of what you do on the ship."

"Elaborate."

"You've listed your main duties as 'fixing others' mistakes' and 'shooting shit'."

"Those are important tasks that I take very seriously," Garrus slammed his fist on the desk in mock anger. Inwardly, he wished he had responded to the message earlier, and maybe taken the paperwork a bit more seriously.

"This isn't a real job-" the salarian slammed the datapad down on his own desk.

"It isn't as though I don't have the money, if that's what they're concerned about," Garrus cut him off. "Why can't my accountant just write a letter of good standing?"

"That isn't the point," Takine sighed. "This building is for professionals. Having a renegade agent holding a lease is bad for value, and the work you're doing isn't exactly subtle. Your picture is plastered all over the news vids with that Shepard woman-"

"She's my boss," Garrus growled. "And she deserves your respect."

"Yes, yes, of course," Takine replied, waving his hand in resignation.

Garrus sighed, smoothing down his fringe once again. This is not how he wanted to start his day.

"Alright," he said finally. "What do I have to do?"

/-/

When she exited the elevator later that day, Shepard had a bounce in her step. Garrus watched her from under the Mako as her feet approached his workstation. She bent down and pulled out the trolly he was laying on.

"Hey," she grinned, waggling her eyebrows.

"Hey back," he replied in kind.

She sat on the ground next to him as he wiped his greasy hands with a rag. Her hair was clipped up and she still smelled lightly of the bubbles from her bath the night before. She hadn't bothered to straighten her hair, either, and her bangs fell into her eyes with a curl that she kept pushing behind her ear.

"So, everyone is going for dinner tonight," she said. "You know, celebrate the last night of shore leave before we take off again. Liara picked some swanky restaurant and made reservations."

"Will I be able to eat this time?" Garrus enquired, remembering the last time Liara had picked a restaurant. Garrus and Tali had resigned to drink together at the bar rather than poison themselves on the levi amino-only foods.

Shepard chuckled and rubbed the back of her neck, "Yes, and she does still feel bad about that."

"I had a grand time with Tali," he smirked. "Felt horrible the next day, but I'm sure our young quarian friend felt worse."

She smiled.

"Eighteen-hundred hours," she said. "And make sure you're prepared for tomorrow. We ship off first thing for the Terminus Systems!"

Garrus sighed, "About that."

Shepard gave him a quizzical look.

"I'm having some… legal complications with my apartment's tenant association," he explained. "I have to meet with them in a few days or they'll evict me and sell off my belongings."

"You can't have somebody represent you?"

"I tried, but my lawyer's useless and refuses to do it. Frankly I don't think he likes me," he squeezed the bridge of his nose. "I have to be there, and I can't cut and run or they'll make sure I'll never rent on the Citadel again."

"What do you mean?" she asked, wiping away the bit of motor oil he'd accidentally smeared on his face.

"If I attempt to break the lease, it will look horrible on my record," he replied. "And the same if I just let them evict me. Besides, there isn't enough time to get my things into storage before we leave, and I've got a lot of… priceless artifacts inside."

Shepard regarded him in silence as he sat up and fiddled about in his tool box.

"I should just let them," he said, annoyed. "This is such a pain."

"Don't say that," she said sternly. "I've never had a place to call my own, you know that? I'm almost thirty and I've never held a lease. I've lived on ships and in barracks since I was 17, except when I was with you. And I've always missed having that sense of stability."

He shuffled the trolly back and forth a bit while he thought, then chuckled.

"When did we get to our thirties?" he asked. "Spirits, I feel old."

"Garrus, fight for your home," she ignored his comment. "You never know when a pretty girl will need to use your bathtub."

He laughed a bit, then added, "That place isn't my home."

She looked confused, and he motioned to the area around them. Getting his meaning, she smiled, and leaned forward. She kissed him on the tip of his nose.

"Eighteen-hundred hours," she said as she stood. "Be ready for dinner."

\-\

Shepard drank entirely too much red wine at dinner. By the end of the night she was leaning on him, grabbing his thigh, trying to whisper to him, which was drowned out by the ever-increasing rowdiness of the Normandy crew. Despite having a private area, their party was getting many disapproving looks from the other patrons, due in part to their generally bawdy behaviour.

It was easy to forget how many people worked on the ship when you never saw them all in one place. Now, both day and night crew seated together, Garrus counted almost 35 people in total crammed around the table. He didn't want to think about the bar tab, grateful that it was the Alliance paying it.

It was about the time that Shepard dropped her wine glass entirely that Garrus decided to drag her to bed. He ignored the catcalls as he pulled her by the arm to the exit.

In the taxi, the driver recognized her almost instantly, despite her civvies. He babbled on about the battle, snapping one or two pictures with his comm when given the chance, and Shepard, in her intoxicated state, happily posed and babbled back. By the time they'd reached the docks entrance, Garrus was annoyed. Before he let the cabbie take off, he made some threats about tracking him down and tearing out his spine if he found the pictures in any tabloids.

In the elevator to their dock, Shepard pressed herself to his chest and wrapped her arms around him.

"You didn't need to do that." she said.

"Yes, I did," he replied. "He could sell those pictures to any news agency for a good amount of credits."

"So?"

"You're the pinnacle of all that is good with humanity," he explained. "You're supposed to be flawless. So the moment you act like, well, a regular person, the media will be all over it, and the Council is already looking for any excuse to take your power away."

"The thanks I get," she shook her head. "That hardly seems fair. Of course I have flaws."

"Yes, but they don't need to know that," he motioned to the doors, referring to the city behind them.

Shepard sighed and leaned further into his chest. After a moment, she reached out and pressed the stop button on the elevator. Before he could ask, she cupped his face in her hands and looked him in the eye.

Aww, spirits, he thought. It's easy to forget how green they are.

"I realized something the other day," she said, not breaking contact. "When we were in your bathroom, remember?"

"That was yesterday-"

"Shut up, whatever," she cut him off, then took a breath. "I realized that even though you look older-"

"Gee, thanks."

"And you act older," she ignored him. "You're still that funny, somewhat immature, borderline drunk asshole that I loved years ago."

"Not borderline drunk anymore, thankfully."

"And I've always regretted missing that opportunity."

His heart skipped a beat.

"I beg your pardon?"

She dropped her hands, then pressed the start button, holding his hand in silence as they ascended to their dock once again.

Garrus' head was spinning.

Seriously?

_Now_?

He was so sure he'd been friend-zoned early on in the mission, and no opportunity to resolve that had been paraded before him, until now.

He squeezed her hand. She squeezed back.

/-/

Garrus wrapped the towel around his leg, securing it with the roll of tape. He knew there was a stash of medigel somewhere in the apartment, but it could wait for now.

He reached up, turned off the burner, and tried to rest as he leaned back against the cupboard. He was prepared to die here, that much he knew but not quite yet. He still had work to do.

He pulled himself up, hobbled over to the other room, and allowed himself to collapse on the couch.

For now, sleep. Then back to the fury tomorrow.

\-\

He could hardly sleep that night, his mind chasing thoughts of what she had said, what she had meant. Twice, he got up and almost walked to her quarters to demand an answer, but-

It was late, she was probably asleep. She was cranky when she was hungover.

Three weeks, he thought. You've got three weeks until the Normandy comes back to restock, then you can confront her after she's had time to think.

After you both have.

He was awake already when his alarm went off- 0600hrs. He switched it off and stood from his bed, already dressed, slinging his pack over his shoulder.

Instead of heading straight to the bridge, he stopped at the mess, hesitating only briefly before knocking on the CO's quarters. A muffled moan came from behind the door and he chuckled.

Still in bed, he thought as he let himself into the room.

It was dim, only the desk lamp was on, and he could see she was still tucked under her covers. He set down his pack and quietly moved over to the side of the bed. He squatted next to her and placed a hand on her shoulder.

"Shepard," he nudged her, eliciting a groan. "Shep, wake up."

She rolled over and continued to snore. He narrowed his eyes and flicked on the bedside lamp.

"Lina," he said, a bit louder.

She woke up that time, rubbing her eyes and moaning. She looked over at him with one eye, furrowed her brow, and reached out to smack his shoulder.

"Why are you waking me up?" she asked, her voice no more than a groan.

"To let you know I'm leaving," he responded. "You get back in about three weeks, right? Give me a call and I'll be ready to do."

She nodded and forced a tired smile, then grabbed his hand and brought it to her face, planting a kiss on the palm.

"Take care of yourself," she said. "And good luck."

"Same to you," he replied, standing up after she dropped his hand.

He walked to the door, grabbed his pack from the floor and paused before exiting the room.

"And, umm…" he stopped and banged his head against the door frame a few times. "You, uhh… you haven't missed the opportunity."

/-/

Sitting in his lawyer's office, he couldn't help but wonder what he really expected. Would she have stopped the ship, run to find him, jump in his arms and express her undying love? Would they kiss in the rain and walk off hand in hand, happily ever after?

He groaned, of course not. It didn't even rain on the Citadel. She probably thought it foolish, if she even remembered what he was talking about.

Not that it mattered now.

"You know, you're my least favourite Vakarian child," Takine flicked quickly through his files. "Your siblings never give me this much trouble."

"I've heard that before." Garrus replied.

"You fought tooth and… talon to keep this place and now you want to break your lease?"

"That's right."

Garrus picked at the dead skin under his talons. He really should've showered before leaving the house that day. Not that he would've gone through any of the motions of showering, but the hot water would've felt nice, probably. He hadn't showered in several days, not since he received the news that the Normandy was taken down near Alchera.

He dropped his life for her, for that ship, and now they were gone and he was totally lost.

Takine sighed, "So where are you looking at renting next?"

"I'm not."

"Buying?" the salarian cocked his head slightly. "It's a terrible market right now-"

"No," Garrus interrupted. "I mean, I'm leaving."

"Leaving?"

"Leaving."

"To where?"

Garrus took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair. "Home for a bit, then who knows?"

"I really must recommend that you keep your apartment for when you return…" Takine tried to argue, but Garrus had already stood.

"I don't know if I'll be coming back," he said over his shoulder as he walked out the door. "Take care of yourself, Cabel!"

The door swished shut behind the turian, and at his desk, Cabel Takine quickly checked the account one last time before closing it.

"Well, he just forfeited his retainer," he muttered to himself before hitting the button on his desk comm. "Send in the next client."

/-/

Time never seemed to pass on Omega, there was no night-day cycle to tell you the hour, no changing of the seasons to tell you the month. When he woke up on the couch, the room looked identical to when he fell asleep- dull, dreary, an ominous red light always peering through the windows.

Every day was the same. The temperature arid and the hurt still throbbed,.

He'd lost his best friend for a third and final time. Funny, he'd always assumed that it was the anticipation- of not knowing when she would be back, if at all- that hurt the worst. But knowing she wasn't ever returning was worse. Her absence felt like a black hole.

He lifted himself from the couch, careful of his injured leg, and grabbed his sniper rifle. He'd dismantled it for cleaning before going on the disastrous walk and felt the need to finish the task before heading out once again. He reached for the oil rag and-

Oh, there they were.

He grabbed the vial of medi-gel from its hiding spot behind his tools. His leg hurt less but just to be safe, to stave off infection, he punched the injector into his calf and pressed down on the plunger.

Much better.

His mind clearer, he began to reassemble the rifle. As he slid the pieces together, he thought about how he left the Citadel, did a brief stopover in Palaven. From there he gathered some weapons, organized his belongings, settled his accounts and headed straight to Omega. For a year, he had been a small piece of resistance in the growing unlawfulness of this dank hellhole.

Archangel, they called him.

He snorted. What the hell kind of a name was that?

His rifle back in one piece, he tested his leg by walking around the apartment a few times. Feeling confident in the healing powers of whiskey and medigel, he put his boot back on and gathered his crime fighting utensils.

Rifle? Check.

Heat sinks? Check.

Growing sense of rage? Check.

As he left, he locked the apartment door.

He was prepared. He had talons to kill.

\-\


	2. Head Full of Doubt

Lina Shepard sat back in the desk chair, concentrating on the stylus pen in her palm. A soft blue glow surrounded her hand and the stylus slowly, magically floated a few centimetres into the air.

She smirked. What a freakin' power.

Her feet rested on the desk, pointing toward the dark, empty sleeping area of the loft. It was all so shiny and new, the plastic practically just torn off the furniture, the fish tank still and void of life. She stared at the pen in her hand for another moment before giving it a small push, and watched as it flew over the empty display cabinet and landed on the couch just beyond the glass.

She let out a small laugh. What a stupid fucking power.

What a stupid fucking day. Was it bad that the first thing she thought of, post-"oh, by the way we brought you back from the dead"-conversation, was that Andrea freakin' Phillips owed her fifty credits? Turns out, there was, in fact, no afterlife, and as the bubbly brunette once bet her that there _was_ (to be paid to her post-mortem in whatever currency was used in the afterlife) it seemed that Shepard had one over her former room mate.

Of course, for the present moment there were bigger concerns to be had, but Shepard also considered bringing it up with her new XO that Cerberus was in debt to her for one (1) ground team, seeing as they were responsible for the "Akuze Fiasco", as it was being called.

Fiasco. Massacre. However you put it, the assholes had murdered a dozen or so good soldiers for no reason. Her displeasure with now being associated with the organization responsible for one of the biggest traumatic events of her adult life was expressed thoroughly on the shuttle from 'Top Secret Science Station A' to 'Top Secret Science Station B' in the form of beating her so-called rescuers' faces in with her fist and elbow.

Ha! That's what you get for… bringing me back to life and then safely removing me from a doomed space station… Dicks!

Further memory searching had brought to mind a number of research stations that had been in some way infiltrated and sabotaged by the group during her first walk through hell. Other than her investigating the stations, shooting up some husks of one form or another, and contacting Fifth Fleet to do clean-up, she had little to no feelings about these incidents, except that they were a waste of her time and just piled on proof that Cerberus was, for lack of a better term, evil. The Illusive Man was little more than Satan with a bad rug and his little succubus Miranda wasn't much better.

The fuckers had to interfere in everything, didn't they? Fuck her team, fuck her mission, and now they've fucked around in her head, implanting biotics where no biotics should be implanted- in the hands of a woman with a quick temper and access to a lot of guns.

Although they had only granted her enough power to pick up one or two abilities. She was nowhere near strong enough to create a full-blown singularity, and, admittedly, making shit fly through the air was kind of fun.

"Shepard," Speak of the devil (ha!), Miranda's voice came over the comm, and the CO cringed a bit.

"What?"

"We're approaching Omega now, ETA in twenty minutes," came the response.

"Sure thing," Shepard flicked the comm to OFF and grabbed another pen out of the cup. She concentrated on it until she felt a now familiar surge of power in her hand, accompanied by a pulsing tingle, and watched her target- the chair on the far side of the room. With a small push the pen flew over the display cabinet and landed a half metre away from the chair.

She made an annoyed sound.

She realized the irony in her thinking of Cerberus as 'evil', seeing has Shepard herself had a bit of a ruthless reputation and bad attitude, but she _did_ believe in respect and even though the word occasionally slithered out of her shipmates' mouths, she heard little meaning behind it. Sure they _respected_ her actions in the Battle for the Citadel, how she had ordered the Fifth Fleet to concentrate on Sovereign instead of saving the Destiny Ascension, thus "securing humanity's place" as Udina had put it. She shuddered. She had shuddered at Udina when he sidled up to her and Anderson after the fact, and she shuddered when the Illusive Man brought it up again. In hindsight, what she had done was wrong, wrong, wrong. Even if the council was made up of racist dicks that didn't believe her for a second about the goddamn Reapers.

If only, she sighed. If only life had save points.

She pulled her armour out from the locker next to her bed, accidentally knocking the lampshade on her bedside table. After taking far too long to get it _perfectly_ straight, she threw her hands in the air and then messed up the sheets a bit. The room looked too goddamn tidy, anyway.

In the elevator, she checked her dossier. The mercenary, the professor, and 'Archangel'.

/-/

It was hours after her biotic target practice that Shepard once again boarded her ship, wiping her forehead with the back of her gloved hand, clearing away the sweat but leaving a streak of blue blood in its place. She pressed her hand back onto the wound and glanced up at Chakwas. The doctor had been surprised to see Shepard and Jacob and Zaeed Massani dragging a turian into the med bay, and even more shocked when she realized that it was, in fact, the only turian she had really treated her entire military career.

She prepped her equipment as the ground team hauled Garrus onto the table, Shepard giving her a quick rundown the entire way.

"Gunship," she said quickly, wiping her face again, leaving more blue streaks beneath her eyes. "Hit with a rocket, and he might have been shot, too. Probably a fifty calibre. I don't know how many times he was hit. He had been on stims for at least a few days beforehand-"

"Thank you, Commander, I can take it from here," Chakwas shooed Jacob and Zaeed away, reclaiming enough space for her and her assistant to work.

Shepard stood back nervously, her hands wringing an invisible nothing in front of her. She glanced around the room, watching the doctor and nurse work for a few moments before cutting in.

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

"You can leave," Chakwas replied, once again making a 'shoo shoo!' motion with her hands. "I need the space to work."

"But I-"

"Commander, I'll tell you what," Chakwas turned to her briefly as she loaded some vile looking medication into a syringe. "You wait outside the windows. If a Collector jumps out of his wounds, I'll call you in here to shoot it."

Shepard nodded and dropped her hands at her side.

That Chakwas. She always did have a talent for reckless insubordination.

As she blindly stumbled out of the room (nearly knocking over a filing cabinet as she did) and found Jacob and Zaeed, both banished from the med bay as well, sitting at the dining table, Jacob checking his weapons for damage and Zaeed biting the end off of a cigar.

"Don't smoke that in here," Shepard's reflexes kicked in before she could stop herself. As the ex-merc eyed her incredulously, she inwardly chastised herself for speaking that way to a legend.

A legend she had studied at great length with a horrified fascination in her earlier years, marvelling at the fact that the man must have balls the size of planets. Really, when she had received the message saying _Zaeed Goddamn Massani_ was going to be part of her team, her jaw dropped. She only _kind of_ secretly hero-worshipped the man, just a little bit, even if he was supposed to be an example of _what not to do_ (see: start a notorious mercenary gang.) She had to fight the urge to gape, to stare, to simultaneously bow down while shouting "We're not worthy! We're not worthy! We're scum! We _suck!_"

"Sorry," she said quickly, not really knowing what she was apologizing for. "I don't like the smell of smoke. You're free to have it in your quarters."

The merc pulled the cigar out of his mouth, watched Shepard for a moment, sizing her up with his eyes, and pointed to a label wrapped around the base of the cigar.

"See this?" he asked. "It's a real Cuban cigar. Damn near impossible to come by, seeing as there isn't a Cuba anymore. A salarian bookie gave me a case of these as payment for a job. Some deadbeat addict placed one too many bad bets and didn't have the cash to pony up, and when I brought his ass in it turned out, neither did the bookie. He opened up his humidor after I threatened to cut off his first horn, and told me to take anything I wanted. As luck would have it these were inside. Worth far more than the price we agreed on in the first place.

"Last person who told me I couldn't enjoy one of these ended up at the bottom of a Terminus mineshaft," he paused to let that sink in. "But, I like you, Shepard, and your Illusive Man is paying me enough to get myself a lifetime's worth of these beauties," he slipped the cigar back into it's plastic casing. "Now, if I can't smoke it here, care to show me where I can?"

"I-" she stopped and gave the him a surprised look. "Well- Jacob, could you-?"

"Yeah, Commander," Jacob saluted and nervously motioned for Zaeed to follow him. "I'll take you to your quarters."

"And that other job you've got?" she called to their backs. "Forward me the co-ordinates, I'll make it a priority."

You'll make it a priority to not piss off the legendary ex-merc bounty hunter that is living in close quarters with you, she thought.

Said ex-merc and Jacob both disappeared around the corner as Miranda Lawson appeared, her hair and clothing a mess, a scarred old salarian in tow behind her. Shepard frowned at Miranda as Miranda scowled at the back of Zaeed Massani- the XO had tried to start a great argument with Shepard over him, stating that he wasn't part of the mission, he had no right being on the ship, Shepard was just nursing a crush and not thinking of the safety of the crew when she invited him on board. Shepard's response of "Hey, it was really your boss's idea" shut her up a bit, but she had still maintained that insufferable scowl. To get rid of her, Shepard had then sent her off to find Dr. Mordin Solus in the Omega slums as the rest of the ground team went after Archangel. A task, she realized now, that had taken much longer than originally anticipated.

A realization she then expressed with a few choice words in a less-than-professional tone.

"May have been my fault," the salarian cut in. "Commander Shepard? Mordin Solus. Charmed. Asked miss Lawson to help- disease, getting worse. Had to administer cure. Lots of vorcha." He paused and sniffed the air. "Very messy."

Shepard raised an eyebrow at him. "Are you for real?"

"Of course!" he replied. "Succinct, but real."

"I see," she nodded. "Well, you're a doctor, get in there, see what you can do."

"Archangel, yes? Helped him before. Very polite, if I recall. If somewhat impertinent."

"Just go," she pointed her thumb toward the med bay. "Wait." She touched his arm to stop him, eyeing his damaged cranial horn. "You were never a bookie, were you?"

"Never. Could never understand the enjoyment behind betting-" he started, before Shepard cut him off with a jerk of her thumb back toward the med bay.

She sighed, placing her hands on her hips, and looked back at Miranda. The redhead stared at the brunette who stared back at the redhead. Shepard waited, expectantly, for more excuses and gave an exaggerated shrug when they didn't come.

Miranda cleared her throat and spoke with great control. "We should continue with the dossiers-"

"Fine," Shepard cut her off. "Set a course for the refueling station, then to Purgatory afterwards."

"Shepard-"

"I'll be up in the CIC momentarily."

"Shepard, if he doesn't make it out of surgery-"

"He will."

"… we should think about contacting the Illusive Man for a possible replacement."

"Miranda, I don't have time to argue about this with you," Shepard raised her voice, putting on the best _that's COMMANDER Shepard to you_ tone she could muster under the circumstances. "Get up to the CIC, plot a course for the closest refueling station, and get us the hell off of this rock."

Miranda pursed her lips, giving a curt nod and clearly biting back a response she would regret. Turning, she made quick work of the space between her and the elevator, leaving behind only the plangent tone of her heels on the tile. Shepard let out a sigh and glanced into the med bay, where Chakwas or one of the assistants had pulled the curtain shut, blocking her view of the procedure.

So this was how her day was going to be? Have one friend completely dismiss her for working with Cerberus and watch another almost die at her feet? And now she couldn't even stand there and worry. She checked her omni-tool for the time, more for something to do than out of curiosity. Her stomach was tight, her insides felt like they were twisting out of her control and every breath in stabbed at her chest like the proverbial dagger to the heart.

What was the point in this? No mission was worth having everyone she loved either turn on her or die.

\-\

Miranda was still annoyed, obviously. Several hours after the end of the mission she still hadn't called on Shepard for debriefing and in her place, Jacob stood across the table from Shepard, alone, trying to convince her that they had done everything they could, all they had to do was wait, Garrus still needed time to recover.

She shook her head and let out a breath. After she was forced from the med bay, she had begrudgingly gone to her quarters to clean herself off, finding a surprising amount of blue blood smeared across her face. It had shocked her a bit, seeing how she had unconsciously formed a familiar pattern across her brow and nose.

And then the door to the briefing room opened, and the stubborn fucker himself stood there, a smirk on his face, the full smile shining bright in his eyes.

"Tough son of a bitch…" she heard Jacob mutter, but the rest was just noise to her.

She smiled. No, she full on grinned like a madman. That twisting in her stomach fell away, replaced with a euphoric all-over body buzz.

"How bad is it?" he asked, rubbing at his chin. She realized that he wasn't smirking to be a dick, he couldn't pull back his mandibles to smile on the injured side.

"Ah, you were always an ugly fuck," she motioned for him to turn his head so she could take a look. "How does it feel?"

"Like I got hit with a rocket, how do you think it feels?"

She laughed and gently slapped his good side.

"Garrus Vakarian: renegade, ladies' man, stops rockets with his face," she pantomimed.

"If that was an obvious attempt to make my biographical vid that much more interesting-"

"Obviously."

"Please, keep talking me up like that. Maybe one of the studios will option my story while I'm still alive and I can make some money off of it."

"The way you're going? Fat chance," Shepard leaned on the table, arms crossed. She nodded to Jacob as he walked away, leaving her and Garrus alone in the room.

Garrus glanced at her.

"So," he leaned next to her. "We're with Cerberus now."

"It would seem," she gave a small shrug. "I guess I owe them my life, and our mission is pretty important…" she trailed off, unsure of what to say next. It was something she had never experienced before.

"I don't trust them," he broke the silence.

"Me neither," she replied, feeling this was the most honest statement she'd uttered all day.

"I'm glad you still have some sense," he shook his head. She did the same.

"What happened to you down there?" she asked. "I mean, the mercs, the _name_, it sounds like you've got quite the story-"

"Yeah," he rubbed at his chin, then flinched and pulled his hand away. "But, some other time, I think."

"You all right?" she asked as he pushed himself away from the table.

"Yeah," he replied. "I'm fit for duty whenever you need me, Shepard. I'll go to the main battery and see what I can do from there."

She nodded and watched him duck out of the room. Her heart lurched a bit, not for the first time that day. It had been two years since their last conversation, before he left the Normandy, before those Collector assholes shot her down over Alchera.

And now he doesn't trust you.

So what are the odds that he still feels the way you feel?


	3. Take Away these Early Grave Blues

Shepard pressed onward, trying her best to ignore the colonists in stasis and the groups of seeker swarms buzzing around them, oblivious to her team's presence thanks to Mordin's miracle countermeasure. There were Collectors around what felt like every corner, and always with more husks and less waist-high ground coverage. Harbinger was pulling out all the stops to make sure they could get away unscathed, even going so far as to say "Focus on Shepard!" as though the rest of her team didn't matter.

Harbinger of my destruction, my ass, she thought. More like harbinger of… my… badassery.

Aww, shit, she swore under her breath. I had something for this.

A shot whizzed by her head, shaking her out of her thoughts. She glanced behind her to see a dead Collector on the ground, a single shot in between his beady little eyes. She looked to the other side to see Garrus giving her a casual, one-fingered salute.

"Thank you, my love," she smiled at him.

"Any time, Commander," he smiled back.

Ahh, Garrus. The tough bastard had recovered miraculously quickly from a rocket to the face, but then again he'd always been the stubborn type. She could only recall one time when he had called in sick to work, despite many morning he'd woken up hungover or low on sleep. She had never dragged him home from the bar (it was always the other way around) and he'd scarcely complained about helping her out when she needed it.

Like a good little soldier. Always helping out the team.

Another shot hit the ballast next to her head. She frowned and pulled her Eviscerator rifle up to her shoulder, eyeing a small handful of Collectors as they appeared out of seemingly nowhere, one of them glowing as Harbinger assumed his form.

"Will you excuse me?" She cried over the top of her cover, swinging her rifle to aim at the approaching insectoids. "But I'm trying-" she took a shot, repositioned. "To have-" Another shot, repositioned. "A sentimental moment here!" One more shot, and there was only the annoyingly persistent form of the glowing Collector puppet before her.

Harbinger approached, and she focused all of the fire within her into her left arm. With a swing and a flick, she pulled his glowing yellow ass through the air and, once he was securely off the ground, sent a few well-placed incendiary shots his way. To her right, Zaeed let out a few rounds with his assault rifle, and back and to her left, Garrus joined suit, letting out a few well-timed cracks with his sniper rifle. She let out a bated breath when the form of Harbinger finally fell, clearing their path to the heart of the colony. She sheathed her weapon, pushing herself from her kneeling position as she did so, and checked the map on her omni-tool to make sure they were still heading in the right direction.

Zaeed joined her side, carefully scanning the distance, and Garrus approached, checking behind them to make sure they weren't being jumped. She smirked- having the ex-Blue Sun on her team was like a fangirl's wet dream. Everything about his past fascinated her, and in the short time he'd been on the ship, she'd taken to enjoying her time off in his quarters, listening to his tales of adventure and intrigue with girlish awe. Having Garrus on her team, meanwhile…

She felt her heart sink a bit as she looked at him. God, everything about him was… ugh. She woke up, to her what felt like weeks after he had basically told her _Yes, I still have all of the feelings for you_, and it had been two years for him. She didn't want to ask him how he felt, because frankly, she was scared to know.

"Commander?" his voice interrupted her thoughts. Ahhh, goddamn, _his voice…_

"Yes, Garrus?" she replied, trying to shake the part of her mind that said _get him to keep talking and just finish yourself off in the corner…_

"Are you all right?" he asked. "You seem to be… elsewhere."

"Yeah, I'm fine," she nervously adjusted her armour a bit. "It's just… nothing." She shook her head and glanced at her map once again, making sure they were heading toward the Starport. "This way, gentlemen, let's try and get this overwith quickly. Something tells me this is going to be an aggravating day."

/-/

It wasn't often that Lina got so angry, anymore. In the years since she'd left the Citadel, she had grown out of her admittedly childish brash and touchy behaviour and learned to manipulate her reactions to better aid her situation, snuffing the need to _shoot first, ask questions later_. Her hands gripped one of the laminate glass plates from the mess hall, feeling its weight before she tossed it in the air.

But when that slick-haired fucker dared to hug her, then call her a traitor? Fuck that. Fuck that sideways with a loaded handcanon. She had never been able to take jabs to her character lightly, and even less so when they were so undoubtedly untrue.

And from such greasy little… _Kaidan_.

She waved her arm and used her biotics to pull the plate, the glassware hovering in the air while her powers recharged. She pulled up her rifle, loaded with incendiary ammo, and fired shattering the dish on contact.

Fuuuuuuck that.

It was quite lucky that she respected the hell out of Zaeed, choosing to let him hold her back instead of elbowing him in the face as Alenko walked away, all the while the questions of _if I shoot him in the spine, will I paralyze him or just injure him?_ running through her mind.

As she shrugged Zaeed off and turned to head back to the LZ, she spotted Garrus as he gripped his rifle, the same question likely running through his.

She reloaded her rifle, using her omni-tool to select cryo ammo, and looked at the stack of plates a few metres away from her. She focused on the top dish and waved her arm in toward herself, pulling the plate off of the pile and sending it hovering in the air. She aimed her rifle and fired off a cryo round, the dish shattered, like the first, but froze and the individual pieces again shattered as they hit the ground.

It felt good to destroy something superficial. Not quite as satisfying as snapping a spine, but it would do for now.

"You know if you miss one you could kill us all," a bored sounding voice came from behind her. "Although it would be fun to watch a bunch of Cerberus dicks get what's theirs."

"I think the ship's built to withstand more than one stray bullet, Jack," Shepard replied, checking her gun casually before slinging it over her shoulder. The young biotic sat on a stray supply crate, her chin resting on her knuckles. She stretched her shoulders, cracking her neck before glancing over at the stack of plates.

"I thought those were supposed to be unbreakable or something," she said, motioning to the dinnerware.

"Only one way to test that," Shepard leaned on the crate next to her and aimed her rifle again. She fired a shot, taking out one of the middle plates and sending the rest flying off the box they rested on. "Looks to me it's 'or something'."

"Don't we need to eat off of those?"

Shepard smirked. "Cerberus can buy more."

Jack chortled. "Yeah, after they implant mind control chips in us all to keep it from happening again."

Placing her rifle at her feet, Shepard stifled a small yawn. The day had taken a toll on her, fighting Collectors, watching an entire colony get kidnapped and all that nonsense. She glanced over at her squad mate and crossed her arms. Earlier conversations with Jack had proved difficult- the young biotic was terse and extremely circumspect. It was painful to try to get anything out of her that didn't end in a biting response. Really, she was like…

Well, she was like a young Lina Shepard.

"What's going on, Jack?"

"Getting away from the bickering of the engineering crew," she snorted a response. "You'd be surprised how the sound carries into my room- those two are like gossipy old women."

"It is kind of peaceful down here," Shepard scanned the docking bay, taking in the gleam of light off the shuttle and the hum of the ship engines. Despite the lower level housing many of the private crew quarters as well as the exercise facilities, the spacious, wide open bay was usually empty. "I don't think many people come down, other than to maintain the shuttle."

Jack shook her head "Nah, too bright."

"There's always something," the CO pushed herself up from the crate and grabbed her rifle again. She felt a small shudder run down her spine at the cool air suddenly started to affect her. Rolling her shoulders, she decided to call it a night.

"You going to need any of these plates?"

Jack shook her head no and Shepard walked to where the remaining dishes lay on the ground. She fired at two, shattering them where they lay, and grabbed the third, hurling it against the far wall, where it struck and fell to the ground, unbroken. Shepard popped the spent heat sink from her rifle and walked over to the errant plate.

"This one has gumption," she said as she plucked it from the ground. She turned back to Jack. "It can live."

Jack shook her hands in the air with a sarcastic flair.

"Good night, Jack," said the Commander.

"Good night, boss lady," said Jack.

Her footsteps echoed in the hall of the crew deck as she exited the lift. She walked a little softer, not wanting to wake the sleeping blue shift crew, and carefully put the one remaining plate back in the cupboard. The med bay was dark, though she took comfort in knowing that Chakwas was always on call and ready for anything, and Miranda's door was locked, the entry panel glowing red. A glance down the hallway, past the sleeper pods to the Main Battery, told her that somebody was still on duty on this deck, the door an inviting green.

"EDI," she called quietly. "Is the main battery occupied right now?"

"Yes, Commander," the AI replied. "Officer Vakarian is compiling code for a-"

"Thanks, EDI," Shepard cut it off.

"Would you like me to call him for you?" the AI asked.

"No, I'll leave him to his work," she replied.

The island counter was cold, but she leaned against it anyway. The skeleton crew on amber shift had eaten hours ago, not long before Shepard had grabbed the plates to dabble in a little target practice. She glanced at her omni-tool, checking the ship's time- there were about four hours until blue shift was to start, and she was expected to be on duty at that time. With a sigh she pushed herself from the counter and pressed her hands to her lower back, stretching it out as she moved to head back to the elevator. A telltale swish of the pneumatic doors opening made her pause, and she turned to see a very tired-looking turian exit the main battery, empty coffee mug in hand.

"And what are you doing up so late?" she asked in a teasing tone as he approached the mess.

"Sorry, Commander," his voice was flat, the distinct flange unable to hide his exhaustion. "The workstation in the main battery is a mess, I've been trying to make sense of the horrible programming Cerberus put into it."

"I think it's time to get some sleep," Shepard took the mug from his hand and set it in the sink. "For both of us. I expect you'll be up in time for your shift in the morning?"

"You know me," he scratched at the back of his neck. "Never miss work if I can help it."

She gave a laugh and smiled, recalling all the times he'd dragged himself out of bed to get ready for work, despite how late they'd been up the night before. It was a true example of his everyday dilemma- he couldn't say no to her… but he also couldn't skip work. In the lift they pressed separate buttons, and it chose to head up to the loft first. The doors whooshed open and Garrus poked his head out, taking in the small landing.

"So this is where you live now?" he clicked his tongue. "Bit cramped for a Commanding officer isn't it?"

"Nobody thinks you're funny," Shepard shot back, stepping into the doorway of the elevator. She paused, then turned back to him. "Hey, if after shift tomorrow-"

"Today."

"- today, you're not too tired, come on up," she shrugged. "We haven't really had one of those… proper-"

He air quoted with his fingers.

"- personnel debriefings."

"You mean get drunk and catch up, don't you?" he asked.

"If that's the way you want to put it."

He shrugged. "I'll be there."

"Only if you aren't too tired."

"I'll be there," he pressed. "Good night."

"You too," she stepped out of the doorway. "Sleep well."

"You know if you put some throw rugs in there it might be downright comfy…"

"Nobody thinks you're funny!" she yelled into the closing door.

As she pulled off her uniform and crawled into bed she realized that they really hadn't been able to catch up. The hectic nature of their mission and his recovery had kept them from being together for more than a few minutes at a time. And although he tried to stay casual, to act as though this whole Cerberus nonsense was beneath him, she could tell in those odd moments of silence and stiffness that he wasn't really sure what to think of her being alive.

She rolled over in bed, stuffing one arm beneath her pillow and curling her legs together.

It isn't worth it, she thought, to dwell on these things, not with humanity at stake. But deep inside her she knew that she would give up all of the colonies in the galaxy if it meant getting him back.


	4. Grow Up and Blow Away

Lina had been flipping through the articles on the Alliance News Network extranet site, trying to pass the free time she had between procrastinating doing paperwork and sleep. She was sitting cross-legged on the lounge chair in her quarters, engrossed in one particularly fascinating piece of gossip:

_Asari matriarch Goneril Medea of Sanves is claiming that the father of her oldest daughter is the famous Earth playwright William Shakespeare. Medea released a statement saying that she spent time on Earth in her late maiden years, acting as a muse to the bard and inspiring his language and writing style._

"_William was a wonderful, honest, open-minded man," Medea told the Citadel News Network earlier this week. "I met him in 1588, after visiting Earth on a dare, and spent nearly five years returning in secret to visit him."_

_William Shakespeare had a great influence on the Common language (then known as English.) Of all the words within the Common language, roughly 2300 of them appeared for the first time in Shakespeare's works, and roughly 800 of those are still in use today._

_Medea's only daughter, matron Sycorax Medea, is a director in Thessia's famous travelling play company Voice of the Blue. When asked to verify her mothers claims, the matron had no comment._

As she read, Shepard ran her tongue over her teeth and blanched slightly at the feeling of them. She set down the datapad and hopped over the steps, determined to rid her mouth of the unclean feeling lingering in it.

She watched herself in the mirror as she brushed her teeth with a frivolousness she had yet to experience in any other form of personal hygiene. The teeth Cerberus had set into her jaw felt… wrong. They were too white, too straight, as she suspected that none of them were original. It felt wrong to have even the least bit of residue stuck to them. She spat.

Curious, she pulled back one side of her mouth with her toothbrush and checked the flat top of her bottom left molar, a tooth she knew for a fact had a metallic filling from the shoddy dentistry she'd received from a free clinic in her teen years.

It was a pearly off-white.

Yup. All of them new.

She spat again and went through her mouth once more before finishing off with a dash of mouthwash.

It had been a long-ass day, running around Illium for what felt like weeks, and they still had a 16 hour flight to the Citadel. She felt like she was in some sort of life-sized game of scavenger hunt- let's see who can run across the galaxy and collect more mismatched crew members. Really, she wanted nothing more than to watch a mindless vid and sleep. She filled a glass with water from the tap and walked back into the living area, set to search for something to watch until she got tired.

The door buzzed.

"EDI, who is it?" she called, instinctively glancing up to the console by the door. She still wasn't entirely used to speaking directly to her ship.

It's a computer, she reminded herself, you don't need to look at it when you speak.

"Officer Vakarian is outside," the AI responded.

Christ that was a convincing voice, Shepard shuddered.

"Let him in," she called again, setting her water down on the coffee table.

/-/

There was dirt on the floor in the loft, just before the door to the Commander's private quarters, and Garrus spent a few minutes kicking at it softly before he finally pressed the call button. He did it quickly, with an almost involuntary speed, not giving himself the chance to change his mind partway through.

This was not a talk he was looking forward to having.

_Damn your eyes, Vakarian!_ He chided himself. _You're thirty-fou… over… almost… about… __**thirty-something**_ _years old, you are past the point in your life where you avoid the uncomfortable conversations!_

Shepard had asked him to come up days ago, _if he wasn't too tired_. Of course he had been, post-shift, he shuffled himself back to bed and slept for the next twelve hours until shift started again, barely giving himself time for proper hygiene and nutrition. And since then, well, when she'd come into the main battery he'd been pretty busy, partly with calibrating the weapons, partly with trying to find the right words to tell her exactly what he needed to say.

And now it was too late to leave. The door controls changed from red to green and, with further involuntary quickness, he opened them and stepped inside.

And damn, was this room huge.

He almost didn't notice Shepard curled on a swivel chair with a glass of water and the day's news. She turned and waved him over with the hand holding a datapad.

"Hey there," she called as he approached. "Aren't you supposed to be on duty?"

"I believe approaching my commanding officer about professional matters is considered to be an appropriate on-duty activity," he replied with an informal air, then jerked his thumb back toward the door. "I'm running some diagnostic scans and had a few minutes. Is it all right?"

She nodded and motioned for him to sit. He did.

"Nice room," he said, pushing on the couch cushions with his fist. "I've barely got space to stand in my quarters."

"It's good to be king," she replied with a smirk and tossed the datapad on the coffee table. "So, what did you want to see me about?"

He opened his mouth to speak but she interrupted.

"Other than to tell me why you've been avoiding me."

He frowned, furrowing an eye ridge.

"I haven't really been avoiding you," he reasoned.

"You haven't spoken to me outside of shift hours," she said. "Or inside of shift hours, you keep talking about those weapons-"

"Those systems are a mess," he argued. "For all the money they've pumped into this ship, someone clearly overlooked proper weapons calibrating-"

"Calibrate my ass, Garrus, I want to talk," she cut him off.

"You want to talk? All right, let's talk," he started again. "I heard you were dead. I spent the next two years thinking you were dead, talking to everyone I knew about how you were dead, and next thing I know you're pulling me off of that bridge on Omega, clearly alive."

Shepard gave him a shrug that said, 'My timing is perfect.'

"You don't-" he sighed. "I'm having a hard time dealing with this, all right? You were completely gone, and now you're not. And Cerberus is involved and from what I remember they were some of the bad guys, Shepard. How many of their bases did we take down on the SR-1? And this is making me think that it's all some elaborate ruse or maybe I'm losing my mind or-" a frustrated groan came from him. "I don't really know what to believe-"

Shepard gave an exaggerated eye roll and held up a hand.

"Okay, you need to shut your goddamn mouth right now," she interjected.

He glanced over, perturbed.

"You need to shut up and listen to me: this is exactly what I don't need right now. I got enough of the distrust and suspicion from Tali and Kaidan and even Anderson for Christ's sake, and I do not need it from you. I know full well that I died. I know full well that we fought Cerberus in the past, I lost men to them, and I know exactly how evil they are, so believe me when I say that no one is having more trouble dealing with this than me.

"What I _do_ need is for you to be Garrus fucking Vakarian. I need you to say 'all right, we'll have some drinks and figure this out when we're sober.' I need you to realize that I need my best friend."

Shepard stopped suddenly and fiddled with the lampshade over her head.

"This isn't us," she said. "If you're going to tell me that you can't get past this, I'm going to ask you to leave, because the Garrus I remember wouldn't question me. But if you can understand that I can't give you all of the answers right away, I'd appreciate it if you'd just stand with me for a bit."

Garrus paused, watching her for a bit. Then his shoulders fell a bit and he nodded.

"All right," he said, suddenly unable to conjure the proper words. "All right," he repeated.

He grabbed her hand and squeezed. She squeezed back.

And there was a shift. The uncertainty that had shrouded their reunion suddenly lifted, revealing the person he remembered from years before: the stubborn, ruthless commanding officer he respected mixed with the brash, hostile girl he loved, despite her misgivings. Revealing that part inside him that he forgot existed, the part that let him feel this way about a person.

"So, would you like a beer?" he asked, callously referring to her argument.

"No, I just brushed my teeth," she responded.

"Good," he grabbed her glass of water. "I don't think it would do much for my stomach."

"Painkillers?" she asked.

"Yeah," he replied, taking a sip of her water. He paused. He felt a kind of hardness in his stomach unrelated to the powerful painkillers. He swallowed. "I'm sorry."

"Me too," she leaned her chin on her hand, no hesitation in her voice. "I kind of snapped on you."

"I wasn't thinking-"

"No it's-" she stopped herself and laughed. She felt that they could go on like that for hours. "Hey, before you came in I was going to watch a bad action movie, want to join me?"

He scratched his neck beneath his armor.

"Sorry, but, I'm still technically on duty, and ah," he chuckled. "My boss is a bit of a hardass, so…"

"I get it," she waved her hand at him. "Go. Calibrate! Make me proud."

Despite her exhaustion she followed him to the door, leaning in the frame as he turned to bid her a good night. She pushed her hair back, more of an unintentional act than to get it out of her face, and smiled at him.

The look on her face made him do a double take. He shook his head and chuckled, stepping a bit closer.

"I recognize that look."

"What?" she asked innocently.

"Don't try to think you can manipulate me!"

"I'm not-" she began, then rolled her eyes. "You know that I don't-"

"Trying to use your feminine wiles on me…" he grumbled, resulting in several punches to the arm and shoulder from Lina.

"Shut up, just shut your mouth," she laughed out between punches. "I'm not twenty-two anymore, just shut up. Go back to work. Asshole."

Garrus slapped her hands away and chuckled as he entered the elevator. Shepard, shaking her head, leaned against the door frame to watch him leave.

"Throw you out the airlock," she mumbled with a smirk on her face. When the elevator door shut she breathed a sigh of relief, turning her back to EDI's station, and punched in the commands on the door panel, setting it to 'do not disturb.'

With that nonsense out of the way, the time had come, truly, to focus on her mission.


	5. What We Loved was Not Enough

The first indication the SR2's crew had of their friendship was in the mess hall during a particularly tense game of high-stakes Skyllian Five. The game had broken out during the shift change, where blue shift finished for the day and the amber shift skeleton crew had taken their places. Zaeed had proclaimed that he was bored, and Gardner, taking a seat beside Chakwas as she sipped her post-shift tea, had suggested a game of cards. Joker, who limped about the mess with an empty travel mug, hadn't wasted any time pulling a deck of plastic playing cards (featuring the beautiful, scarcely-dressed women of Fornax's Maiden of the Month) and shuffling them. Shepard smiled as Joker dealt five spots with the ease and grace of a seasoned card player.

"Easier on my bones than sports," he said with a smirk. "I got _really_ good at card games in the service."

Shepard glanced at the empty spot next to her, the invisible player's cards building up, and turned toward the main battery. With two fingers in her mouth, she whistled and called for Garrus to join them.

"You know, I could never do that," Zaeed muttered as he cleaned out an ear with his pinky.

Shepard shrugged, "It's easy."

Close to an hour later, Zaeed was out, having lost a forty of rye, a cigar and a glass eye, followed by Gardner who had lost only a little cash, as well as some family photos (which were being guarded by Chakwas). Joker was next, having lost his hat and whatever he was carrying in his pockets at the time. Garrus, altogether pleased with himself, held the cigar between his fingers while Zaeed glared with vehement anger. Spread across the table next to the discarded cards were credit chits, cigarettes, electronic bits and pieces, a few cartons of medi-gel, a watch, Garrus' visor, Joker's SR2 hat, and the (now empty) forty of rye.

Now it was Chakwas, Garrus and Shepard all glancing at one another over their cards. Chakwas put down two kings and smiled at Garrus who paused for a moment before trading two of his cards from the pile, perusing the table, and confidently placing a king and an ace over Chakwas' cards. The doctor paused, put the rest of her hand in the discarded deck, gave a graceful shrug and leaned back, choosing to flick through the small pile of Gardner's photos instead. The two remaining players threw down their cards and rechecked their goods.

Garrus gathered the discarded cards and faced Shepard, giving her his rakish turian grin as he shuffled the deck again.

"You're playing awfully well for someone who used to suck at this game," he teased.

"It isn't that I sucked," she corrected him. "It's that we used to play for shots, not wagers, and I always got far more drunk than you."

"We used the same system when you taught me chess and I excelled at that," he chuckled.

"Just shut up and deal the cards," Shepard rolled her eyes and took a sip of rye from her worn N7 travel mug, having won it back from Joker who had won it from Shepard in a Skyllian Five game on the SR1.

As Garrus shuffled, Zaeed frowned from across the table.

"I'm watching you, boy," he pointed at the turian threateningly. "If I find out you've been cheating I'm going to leap across this table and rip that cigar right out of your ugly, torn up mouth."

"I'm just a lucky guy," Garrus shrugged.

"I swear, you've got something in your display-"

"Hey, my display's been on the table for two rounds!"

"I hope you enjoy that cigar, boy, it's a Cuban, impossible to replace," Zaeed muttered again. "Seeing as there isn't a Cuba anymore…"

Garrus ignored the merc's mutterings and dealt five cards to himself and Shepard, placing the rest of the deck face down between them. He quickly checked his hand before setting it down again, and Lina did the same, a sly smile across her face.

"What's your wager?" he asked.

"What else do I have?" she asked with a laugh. "All my cash is on the table."

"Same," Garrus shrugged, then suggested, "What about your mug?"

"Fuck no! Do you know how happy I am to have this baby back?" she grabbed her mug protectively. "Why don't you wager that damn cigar that Zaeed wants back so badly?"

"Nooope," he grinned and put the cigar between his teeth.

"Why don't we make it interesting?" Shepard bit her lip and leaned in. "Fire round. Five hands. Winner keeps the booty and loser has to complete his next shift naked." 

"What do you mean his?"

"… he asks, assuming he is going to win," she grinned so wide her shiny white teeth flashed. "You forget that I have three passes still, so technically, I only need to win two hands."

Garrus let out a laugh and swore in his native language. He had forgotten about that annoying little strategy of hers. He knew that she knew that he was cornered, despite the odds being in his favour so far. He groaned and rubbed at his eyes, tired from a long shift.

"Under shorts on and you can keep the cigar," he bartered, throwing his treasured prize down on the table.

"Deal," she grabbed her cards.

/—/

One never realizes how cold the mess hall seats actually are until one sits on them half-naked. Despite this, Shepard went over her morning notes with her head held high, ignoring the stares from the crew that seemed to believe that the best place to work that morning was on the crew deck. From down the hall, she could heard Garrus let out an occasional cackle- he had kept the main battery door open ("for airflow") and occasionally glanced out to see her sitting at the table in her Cerberus issue black and yellow underwear.

Garrus, in an amazing streak of dumb luck, had won an unprecedented five hands in a row, leading Shepard's passes to be worthless, Zaeed to believe he'd been cheating all along, and producing a raucous amount of laughter from the doctor, the pilot and the cook. She glared at Gardner now, who was chuckling to himself behind the counter.

"I suppose you're enjoying this," she called to him.

"Not at all, Commander," he replied, suddenly busying himself with something as Garrus walked down the steps toward her. She glared at the hovering crew, and shouted at them to get back to their posts.

Garrus took the empty seat next to her, setting down his coffee and a datapad, his prize cigar still clutched in his free hand. Across the table, Jack and Kasumi giggled to each other over their breakfast. Shepard glanced up at them and watched as Jack made Kasumi's utensils hover in the air a half metre above the table. She was glad that Jack had latched onto the thief- Kasumi was someone that Jack respected for her skill, and in the few weeks they'd been together on the ship she had noticed a friendlier side to the biotic, no doubt brought forth by Kasumi's sweet nature.

It reminded her of herself, really. Her younger self, and the younger version of the jackass sitting next to her.

"How are you this morning, Commander?" the jackass interrupted her thoughts. "Cold in here?"

"Fuck off," Shepard replied, bringing the datapad closer to her chest to hide the fact that yes, she was cold, and her body was responding accordingly.

"Hey, Garrus," Kasumi called from across the table. "We better check the ship next time we dock. I think the high beams are out."

Jack snorted into her coffee, and Shepard turned a funny shade of crimson.

"Okay, okay, thank you, Kasumi," Lina crossed her arms across her chest.

"Sorry, Shep," Kasumi smiled behind a gloved hand. "It had to be said."

"Don't dish it out if you can't take it, boss," Jack smirked.

"She's right," Garrus twirled his cigar in his hand. "If you had won, you'd be making fun of me."

"Well, I didn't," she adjusted her bra strap nervously. "And I didn't squelch on the bet, so I don't appreciate my subordinates dogging me about it."

"Sorry, Commander," Garrus sat back in his chair and turned his attention to his datapad. "At least you have your mug back."

"I do take solace in that," Shepard gripped her mug with one hand and smiled.

"And I have my cigar," he looked at it happily.

"Why don't you smoke that already?" Jack asked. "Before Zaeed sneaks into your room and slits your throat in your sleep to get it back."

"Well, two reasons. One, the Commander doesn't approve of smoking on her ship, although Zaeed seems to be the exception to this rule," he gave Shepard a sideways glance at that. "And two, well… this."

He pointed to the closed end of the cigar, and Shepard gave him a quizzical look.

"I don't have a cutter," he explained. "And while most other species have the right, ah… oral accoutrements…"

Shepard used a finger to push his upper lip out of the way, revealing the long, pointed teeth that started where the human incisors would be.

"Turians' teeth are spaced too far apart," she explained.

"So I can't bite it off without making a mess of things," he pushed her hand away from his mouth.

"Poor boo," Kasumi teased.

"Guess you're getting murdered by Zaeed then," Jack laughed.

"Give me that," Shepard took the cigar from him and placed the tip between her teeth. "You have a lighter?"

He nodded and pulled a cigarette case out of a hidden side pocket in his armour. Tucked inside was the same lighter he'd been using for years, one that Lina had mistaken for gold when she first saw it, but upon closer inspection was a polished brass, engraved with the turian hierarchy symbol. She took the lighter from him, chewing at the end of the cigar, then pointed at the cigarettes and glared at him.

"Still?" she asked.

"Hey, I quit for five years," he threw his hands up.

"This doesn't look like quitting to me," she spat the errant paper and tobacco leaves into her empty mug, then used her finger and a bit of saliva to glue the paper back down over the exposed end.

"I started again about two years ago," he admitted. "I think you know what events triggered that."

She didn't respond, focusing on turning the cigar as she held the flame to the far end. She made a surprised sound at the mild, oaky taste and passed it back to her friend when it was fully lit. He sat back, enjoying his prize, and Lina turned to put her bare feet in his lap. Always one to share, Garrus offered the cigar to Kasumi, but the thief waved her hand and gathered her dishes.

"No thank you," she said. "As a rule, I never partake. Besides, Jack and I have a day planned in the port side lounge."

"Make sure you're able to walk if I need you," Shepard called, recalling the day that she had spent with Kasumi in the port side lounge, with the port side lounge's fully stocked bar.

"No guarantees, Shep, we're in for a day of reckless literary abandon with my private library," Kasumi winked and lead Jack toward the hall.

"Don't hurt yourselves," Garrus called after them, grasping Lina's feet with his free hand. He turned back to the commander to see her examining the old lighter. She ran her thumb over the engraving.

"This used to be so shiny," she mused.

"It used to be so new," he replied. She passed it back to him, and he once again tucked it along with his cigarette case into the side pocket of his armour.

She remembered, all those years ago, whenever he would light a cigarette and there would be that little flash of the brass, the spark from the flint, always visible no matter how hunched over he was to block the breeze. She shifted in her seat and pressed her bare feet further into his thigh. He gave her a smile and played with her toes, attacking them from above with his free hand. She took a deep breath, her comfort and self-assurance overpowering the fact that she was mostly naked in a very public part of the ship. Her mind went back to that night on the Citadel that she'd finally asked him about that ever-present lighter.

"I remember when you told me about the girl that gave it to you," she leaned forward, wrapping her arms around her legs and resting her chin on her knees, a nostalgic feeling flooding her. "And about how she broke your heart, and how you thought you'd never really feel whole again afterwards."

"I've learned a lot since then," he chuckled, grabbing her hands under her legs and clasping them. "It was a bit of a foolish notion to think that I needed someone to feel whole."

"I always kind of secretly hoped," she lowered her voice to a whisper, her heart pounding at the notion of total honesty. "That I'd be the person to make you feel whole again."

He smiled and pressed his face into her scarred knees.

"Well, having you around certainly didn't hurt," he replied.

She kissed him on the brow.

"We aren't alone," he muttered against her knees.

"Gardner won't talk," she joked.

"Gardner's a bigger gossip than you think," he glanced up at her.

"Damn," she sat up and spoke louder. "You know I'm not one to squelch on a bet, but I think I'm going to put some clothes on, it's too damn cold in here."

He smiled again, mandibles brushing against her knees. "Yes, Commander."

"Don't smoke that in the main battery," she disentagled her legs from him.

"Sure thing, Commander," he sat up and stubbed the half-finished cigar out in an abandoned coffee cup.

Shepard padded across the mess hall floor, Garrus watching her as he passed the dirty coffee cup to Gardner and grabbed a clean one for himself.

"What was that about?" the cook asked, glancing between the CO and the turian.

"Ten years of complications," Garrus replied as Jacob walked in, eyes wide, looking as though he'd seen pigs fly in the confines of the crew deck corridor.

"What was _that_ all about?" he asked, motioning toward where Shepard had passed him.

"Gardner already asked that question," Garrus replied before disappearing into the main battery.

Jacob looked to Gardner for a response, and the cook replied with a shrug and a "Don't look at me, I just work here."

\—\

Lina, being the ever vigilant master of petty revenges, would later pay Garrus back for his good luck by knocking him down a flight of slippery stairs and into a pile of garbage in the abandoned Cerberus facility on Pragia. Jack even laughed, despite herself, when Garrus stood, gave Lina a rude hand gesture, and walked into the rain to rinse himself off.

It was only then that he had the wherewithal to ask "Who's fucking glass eye was that!"


	6. How I Wish You Were Here

Another little interlude to keep you occupied while my lovely soul mate/beta/bff and I work through the next chapter. Author's note: I've always really liked Anderson! I've been so happy to be able to write him recently. :)

**Interlude 2: How I Wish You Were Here**

The building was a modern 9-storey condominium complex, one of several sitting in the same block circled around a private parkette. It was a newer set of buildings, built in the last ten years, and in an area of the wards that was almost entirely young professionals. Anderson noticed the construction workers standing around a piece of machinery, discussing topics not at all related to construction. The back entrance to the building was blocked, so the reluctant human councillor disparagingly took the front entrance, grateful to have not run into anyone before he reached the lift.

When he got to the right apartment, the door was already open ajar. Concerned, he slid it open a little more, revealing the room inside. He was almost expecting it to be ransacked, but was surprised when he found it to be tidy, but lived-in. He knocked and called in, fingers mentally crossed that the inhabitant would be home.

Or maybe that he wouldn't be. Anderson wasn't looking forward to delivering this news.

He could see movement on the balcony, and instantly he felt his years of military instinct come back. Beneath his dress jacket, he knew his sidearm was safe in its holster- despite his two security personnel (thrust upon him the moment he became councillor) he felt safer with a gun on his person.

From the balcony doorway, Officer Vakarian appeared. Anderson relaxed.

"Your door was open," the councillor said, greeting the turian with a warm handshake. "I was concerned your house had been broken into."

"Construction in the courtyard," Garrus jerked his thumb toward the balcony. "Shakes the whole damn building and knocks doors open." He fiddled with the closing mechanism and waved his guests in.

Anderson entered, followed by one of his guard. The second stayed outside to watch the hallway. Garrus shut the door behind them.

"What can I do for you, Councillor?"

"Please, Garrus, I think we've been through enough that you can drop the formalities," Anderson said. "Please, call me David."

"All right David," Garrus sat on one of the chairs in the living room. "What can I do for you?"

"I'm afraid that I come bearing some bad news," Anderson sat across from the turian, his guard standing in the doorway.

"If it's about the Normandy, you're about three days too late."

Anderson froze.

"That was classified information," he stated, surprised.

"And that's why I paid an information broker a lot of credits to get it," Garrus motioned to his desktop. His omni-tool flashed and the images he had purchased of the Normandy's crash site appeared on the screen.

Anderson was silent as he walked to the workstation and flipped through the pictures.

"I haven't even seen these," he said solemnly, watching the images flicker on the screen. "How did you find out?"

"One of my contacts picked up Alliance chatter and forwarded it to me," Garrus explained. "So I contacted an agent for the Shadow Broker and this is what he sent me, along with the list of survivors and... otherwise."

Anderson ran a hand over his head, the short bristles picking at his palm as he did. He turned back to the turian, who had stood from the couch and moved back to the balcony. He should have known as soon as he walked in- the young turian, always so lively and cheerful in the past, looked tired now. His posture was slumped and his eyes dull. Anderson followed him to the doorway.

"I'm sorry," he said, standing straight, his hands clasped behind his back. "I know what she meant to you."

Garrus leaned on the balcony wall, looking over the courtyard, cigarette in his mouth. He nodded at Anderson.

"The worst part? Alliance stuck this up not one day after I received confirmation," he motioned to an advertising banner across from the parkette.

It was a recruitment ad, with Shepard's face beaming over the square. '_Come fight with humanity's greatest heroes!_' it said. Anderson read it over and over again, his eyes moving from the tactless slogan to the image of Shepard- a younger Shepard, he noted- looking happy in her Alliance uniform.

"It's bad enough that they won't release her death to the public," he practically growled. "But this is just in bad taste!"

Garrus nodded.

"So I've been sitting here for the last two days, staring at that damn ad, wondering what I'm going to do next."

"You could always rejoin C-Sec," Anderson suggested after a moment of silence. "I'd be happy to recommend you."

"No, I'm sure that even if I wanted to..." Garrus trailed off as he brought his lighter up.

"I'm sorry, I'm... In a bit of a funk," he said, turning back to Anderson. "I know that you two were close. She looked up to you as a kind of father figure."

"She said that?" Anderson asked, suddenly touched.

"Well, never in so many words, but you could tell. You know her, she could never give a compliment without adding two insults," Garrus replied. "Her own parents failed her, and you helped pick her up when she felt she was worth nothing. She looked up to you a great deal."

Silence overtook them. In the living room, the guard shifted uncomfortably where he stood.

"She never planned to join the Alliance Navy before you recruited her, you know?" Garrus continued. "She was planning on staying in her country's infantry. 'Canon fodder', she called it. Doesn't exactly make the job sound appealing."

Anderson nodded, remembering just how difficult it had been to recruit the young private to the Alliance after her specialized training in the Canadian Armed Forces was complete. Eventually, it had taken a promise that she would likely never have to return to Earth again if she left.

That was what she was concerned about- being forced to return to Earth once she had seen everything else the universe had to offer. It was the worst fate she could imagine for herself.

He had felt dubious about recruiting her at first, after reading the reports sent to him by one of the older Admirals, he and Captain Hackett had decided that she would be too high a liability- yes, she was good, but her behaviour was erratic, and the circumstances under which she had joined the military in the first place... He suddenly looked over at Garrus, who seemed to be lost in thought as he stared at the recruiting ad.

"Did she ever tell you… her reasoning for joining the military?" he had to ask.

Garrus gave a concerned look.

"She said something about wanting a better life for herself. I always assumed she went to a recruitment centre when she turned of age."

Anderson grunted and crossed his arms, leaning back against the wall.

"Why, what did she tell you?" Garrus asked.

"It isn't what she told me, I don't think she ever told anybody," Anderson replied. "But I read every report on her I could when we went to recruit, and I've always found it funny that… well."

"Well what?" the turian pressed.

"I found it strange that she befriended a Citadel Security Officer, considering…"

Anderson trailed off, suddenly regretting even bringing it up.

"Considering _what?_" Garrus' voice had started to rise. "I know she was a bad kid- so was I. People change."

Anderson took a deep breath.

"When Lina was seventeen, she was planning on leaving the city she had grown up in. She fell in with some unsavoury people, and one day decided that she could do a lot better for herself if she got out of Montreal," Anderson spoke carefully. "She acquired some money and took a bus heading west. On her journey, at one of the stops she had an… altercation with a police officer. A police officer that she ended up injuring, quite gravely."

Garrus stood, silent, the cigarette in his fingers burning down to the filter. He waited for the councillor to continue.

"Lina was given a choice then, be tried as an adult and sent back to Montreal, or join the military," Anderson gave a sad smile. "You can guess which one she chose. She spent a few months in a juvenile detention centre, and then she was brought to the Canadian Forces Base in Kingston in handcuffs. She excelled in her training, despite her temperament, and well… you know the rest."

Tossing the burned-out cigarette off of the balcony, Garrus shifted his gaze over to the Alliance recruitment ad across the park.

"She never told me," was all he said.

"Like I said, I don't think she ever told anyone," Anderson reasoned. "I personally think… I think she wasn't proud of her behaviour. All of the reports I've read of the incident describe a terrified young woman who insisted it was an accident."

"So you think she befriended me to… what, make herself feel better about it?" Garrus growled.

"I think she befriended you because she liked you," Anderson corrected. "Because she genuinely cared about you. And I'm glad that she found you when she did- even if it meant her grades slipped a bit."

Garrus suddenly smiled at the memory.

"That was her own fault, really," he said. "I told her to study when I was at work but all she did was watch vids."

"I think it was a way for her to feel normal," Anderson suggested. "To decompress from the expectations placed upon her."

"Or she's just a lazy fuck when given the chance," Garrus gave a laugh and lit another cigarette.

Anderson smirked and nodded, glancing through the windows into the living room. His guard motioned to his watch, eagerly attempting to tell the councillor that he had an important meeting shortly. Anderson looked away, ignoring the motion.

"Why was there an N7 campus on the Citadel?" Garrus asked.

"Sorry?" Anderson asked, taken back by the question.

"It's normally at Arcturus, right?" Garrus clarified. "So why was there an N7 campus here?"

"Construction," Anderson clarified. "They were doing construction to Arcturus, we couldn't house all of the ensigns. So we created a satellite campus to train the handful that couldn't fit."

"Is that why you were here? To keep an eye on Lina?"

Anderson gave the turian a sideways glance.

"She always liked me, since I recruited her," he replied. "The Fleet Admirals in the Alliance pulled some strings to have me oversee the satellite campus and, yes, keep an eye on Lina. She may not have respected every superior officer, but I could always get her to see reason."

Garrus let out a laugh.

"It was all for her, wasn't it," he mused.

"What do you mean?"

"She spent so much of her life thinking that she had to fight for everything she had earned," Garrus said.

"I'm sorry that she felt that way."

"Yeah, me too."

"Would you like to get a drink?"

"More than anything."

/—/

When Garrus returned to his apartment several hours later, he collapsed onto the sofa and sat in the dim living room, staring at the wall for what seemed like an eternity. He and Anderson had gone to a jazz club around the corner where the councillor had bought them both two fingers of very old, very expensive scotch to sip on while they talked.

Eventually, the conversation turned from reminiscing about the Commander to their own lives.

"You must have some idea of what you would do after taking down Saren," Anderson asked.

Garrus shook his head, "I never thought that far ahead."

"What about C-Sec?"

"C-Sec and I have permanently parted ways- my father saw to that after I left."

"So you don't have any plans as to what you're going to do next?"

"I've had some ideas the last day or so," Garrus replied, and seeing Anderson's inquisitive face added "Nothing worth getting into, really. My first stop, I think, is to go home."

"Ever think of rejoining the military?" Anderson suggested.

"I'd have to start all the way at the bottom," Garrus laughed. "I'm too old for that."

"Well, whatever you have in mind, I'm sure Shepard would want you to do your best."

Garrus grunted a response and the two of them sat in silence, the only sounds in the bar were the gentle clinking of the glasses as the bartender put them away and the ringing of the piano keys by the pianist in the corner.

"What did you see in Lina that made you want to recruit her?" Garrus asked.

Anderson considered this for a moment.

"I saw someone who wanted to prove herself," he replied. "I saw someone who wanted to make a difference."

Now alone in his apartment, Garrus recalled those words. Hastily he stood and walked to his workstation, bringing up the video call and punched in his mother's code. The screen went black and the words _Please wait while we connect your call…_ flashed bright green across it.

"Please be home, please be home," he whispered. "Please be home…"

"Hi, you've reached Gael Vakarian. I'm not here at the mo-"

"Fuck," Garrus swore, but listened to the rest of the message anyway. He would probably look like hell to his family but he didn't care. Or maybe it would be too dark for them to properly see him in the message. As the answering machine beeped, his own image suddenly appeared on the screen, illuminated only by the light from his monitor. He cleared his throat.

"Hi Sol, I just wanted to let you know… you're probably going to be hearing some bad news pretty soon. I just wanted you to know that I was all right.

"I'll be coming home, shortly. Just give me a few days and I'll catch a flight over when I can. Say hi to mom for me."

He disconnected the call and pushed away from his desk. Outside, his ward had just started its night cycle and the only light coming into the living room was from the Alliance recruitment ad across the way.

He stood in the window letting the light wash over him for a moment. In the other buildings he could see lights turning on in the other apartments, unaffected by the barbaric lumination of the the recruitment ad. Down in the park, the construction workers were long gone, and soon he would be too.

He tore his eyes from the ad and, stepping into the balcony doorway, lit another smoke.


	7. I Could Be Nothing Without You

Almost a year into this "haitus" and here I am, updating again.  
Let me tell you- how I feel about this story now is light years different from how I felt about it in August 2011.  
Updating will remain semi-frequent. Summer is a tumultuous time in a tourist town, in mine? Doubly so.  
Post-Friday the 13th, I will have some more time to edit, update, write porn. Until then, I'll enjoy my hour or two in the morning when I can write with reckless abandon.

Love you all. Thanks for sticking around.  
-D

PS - I should also add, if you haven't already, I would recommend re-reading the story. The chapters may be a bit different from what you remember.

_Each one gives and weakens a bit,_  
_Allowing the other to live and exist._  
- Great Lake Swimmers

\-\

In the wake of Sovereign's attack, the citizens of the Citadel looked for cleaner, sleeker wards- none of the dirty, grimy, _sketchy_ businesses that had been the heart of the lower sections years before. As a result, after the Battle for the Citadel, many such places were closed down, boarded up, turned into something a bit more… acceptable. Luckily for Garrus, though, there was a small hole-in-the-wall bar that he was all-too familiar with. Some dark, dank corner of the wards that was just the kind of place a person could get lost in, the kind of place he had frequented in his younger years, looking for an escape from the surgically bright presidium.

And there he sat, cigarette in his hand, drink on the bar in front of him, when she found him, exactly where she thought he would be. Lina slipped into the barstool next to his, resting her forearms on the stained, scratched wood, giving a quick nod to the bartender with a "bourbon, straight up."

Garrus looked over to her, but she stared ahead, giving him a full view of her familiar profile. That pointed nose, dotted with freckles. Her curls pushed back from her forehead, resting behind her ears. It was strange to see her in civvies, although it really shouldn't be. The majority of their time together, she had spent in civvies. She had also been twenty-two or twenty-three at the time. But this bar and that drink, and her curls and the freckles and the civvies, the white sleeveless shirt and tight black pants and red hi-top sneakers, a wave of nostalgia swept over him and he felt a pang for something he hadn't felt in years.

Certainty. The certainty of knowing where his life was, and what he would be doing the next day. That crappy, ancient apartment with it's hinged doors and malfunctioning climate control, the bed they shared and their ever-rotating selection of coffee tables that always managed to break. He had given it all up in an attempt to forget her, an attempt to make the galaxy a better place with his work, and twice, _twice_ in his attempts he had failed and fallen back into her again. The first time as a C-Sec investigator, where his work never made a difference thanks to bureaucratic nonsense, and hell, he'd burned that bridge to a crisp behind him when he left. The next time as Archangel, where he let his damn feelings get in the way of better judgement, and it had left ten good people dead in his wake. It was blood he couldn't seem to wash off of his hands no matter how hard he scrubbed, so instead, he opted for his old strategy- have a cigarette and a drink in some dingy bar and hope that by the time he left he will have thought through the problem.

Making himself feel better about it made no difference, of course. He was still a failure, a stupid, selfish failure and everything he touched turned to shit. He glanced over at Lina again, who still faced straight forward, taking the occasional sip from her drink. He recognized the smell and it brought back more memories, of how he used to be so full of potential that he had thrown away by acting like a child for far too long- his state of arrested development effectively ruining every relationship he had formed.

Well, all but one, so far. But why was she letting him sit there, wallowing in his own self-pity?

"Aren't you going to say something?" he asked her.

And she finally looked over at him with a smile, and shook her head, and squeezed his hand with her own. She took her drink and walked to a booth, sitting with her back to the wall, facing him, the invitation of "when you're ready" apparent in her actions.

He watched her fluff out her curls. You could always tell she was comfortable when she played with her hair.

So he grabbed his own drink and went to her, setting his glass of bright green liquor next to her dark brown spirit. He saw there was no ash tray and took care to grab a clean one from the bar to bring to their table, setting it away from her, on his far side- his cigarette hand.

Her arm pressed into his, her leg touching his, and she didn't say anything but just listened as he recited his biography, the chapter that he would call _That OTHER Time in My Life I'd Like to Forget._ The chapter that recounted the two years between the destruction of the Normandy and the moment that fucking gunship fired on him. He spared no detail, from the animal trap that destroyed his spur to that one night he had called Andrea Phillips because he just needed some perspective, a reminder of who he used to be before everything had fallen apart. He took off his visor and pointed out the names of his men scratched into it: Erash, Monteague, Mierin, Grundan Krul, Melanis, Ripper, Sensat, Vortash, Butler, Weaver, Sidonis.

He faltered, his cigarette hand shaking badly as he read them, over and over again. He had carved them into his visor as a reminded of all that he had left in the world, everything that he had to protect. Nothing else mattered but the names, and that's all that they were now- some names scratched onto a worthless piece of metal.

Lina listened with her hand on his wrist. When he stopped talking she stayed silent a moment longer until she asked what she was hoping she wouldn't need to ask, what she had hoped he was truly certain of before they left the Normandy that morning.

"Do you regret killing him?"

For a moment he didn't respond, but his breath hitched a bit. Then he took his cigarette and rubbed the ember into the last name scratched into his visor.

"No."

/-/

By the time they had returned to the ship, Garrus felt as though the ground was spinning a bit. It had been a long time since he was _drunk_, imbibing more than a beer on a hot day, or some wine with a meal, or a glass of scotch with a friend. He was a big person and had years of experience under his belt, so his tolerance to alcohol was nothing to scoff at, and in his adult years he could count on his six fingers the number of times he had been out of control drunk and he'd still have a few fingers left. Hell last time was… before Omega, a short trip back to Palaven, back home to gather himself and settle his accounts before his personal suicide mission. It turned out that "gathering himself" meant getting hammered, then sleeping with Telsa Radnar, and good _spirits_ she was just as pretty as she was when they were young. On Omega, it was important to stay alert as half of the station wanted him dead, and he wasn't about to make it easy for them.

But here he was now, leaning on Lina's shoulders as she half-dragged, half-stumbled with him back to the ship. Her strength was immeasurable, as he was an easy forty-five kilos heavier than she was, an easy half-metre taller, but she didn't drop him. She did pause, once, and push him against the dock wall to open the Normandy's hatch, then pulled his shirt to grab hold of him again.

"Left, right, left, right," she muttered softly to him, and he took a step with each corresponding foot as she spoke. They walked rather awkwardly through the CIC, unfortunately having arrived during shift change, when the room was busiest.

"Left, right, left…" Lina paused to let a crew member cut in front of them and let out a whine as she felt Garrus sinking into her side. "Come on, big guy, you're going to have to help me out here…"

Garrus shot his hand out and managed to grab onto the railing surrounding the galaxy map. He felt Lina shift his weight on her shoulders and kept his gaze firmly on the floor as she continued her quiet cadence, bringing them successfully to the elevator without a big, embarrassing scene.

He felt himself being pressed to the wall again and looked up to see the reflective inside of the elevator. Lina pushed the button for the loft, and moved again to wrap her arms around his torso. He tried to tell her that no, that wasn't right, his quarters were down on the storage deck, but she pressed a finger to his mouth and shook her head. The lift wall was nice and cold against his back, and Lina at her side was even cool in comparison to him, but his face was warm and his stomach was doing all kinds of uncomfortable things, and the movement of the elevator was starting to feel weird, and oh spirits, damnit, damnit, no no no; everything got kind of fuzzy and the light dizziness turned into all out spins and the floor was getting a lot closer and then there was nothing.

When he came around again, he was swaddled in something soft but that didn't help the hollow feeling in his joints. He stretched his legs out and, realizing the soft stuff was blankets and a pillow, stuffed the cushiest thing he could find under his neck and rolled onto his back. His stomach made a vulgar sound and he scoffed, giving himself a silent reprieve about how liquor is a cruel mistress and is not to be trusted ever again.

A cool hand touched his stomach and he quickly glanced to his side. Lina was there, equally wrapped in the blankets next to him with a concerned look on her face. He wasn't really surprised- last he remembered was being in the elevator with her- but it was still nice to wake up to.

Even if he felt like shit.

"You okay?" she asked, and he nodded in response. "I lost you there for a minute."

"Sorry," he mumbled back. "You'd think at this point in my life I'd know better."

Lina smiled and rubbed at her eyes.

"There's water next to you there," she pointed with one hand then stifled a yawn with the other.

"You're a queen," he replied, which made her chuckle.

They both shuffled into a more upright position and Garrus spent a few silent minutes enjoying his water while Lina recounted what he did and did not remember from the night before, a ritual they had started in their younger years (which, although they were just as adventurous as their current years, were full of far stupider adventures) although back then their roles were almost always switched- Lina had been a far easier drunk (and was far easier to carry halfway across the Citadel when she could no longer walk) and Garrus had been far more responsible. He covered his face in embarrassment when she reminded him that their walk through the CIC was none too subtle and unfortunately timed.

He chuckled and pushed back the blankets with his feet, rolling himself off the bed as gently as he could so as not to upset his already tumultuous stomach. When he finally stood, it took him a moment to gain his balance, and he cursed that cruel mistress liquor because _he was still goddamn drunk_. He stumbled up the steps, the light from the fish tank illuminating the way, and felt his way into the bathroom.

Shepard hugged her knees to her chest, her stomach knotted with worry. She'd noticed him withdrawing to the main battery more and more, his excuses of "these weapons don't calibrate themselves you know" falling a bit short after she had heard them a dozen times or so. He was becoming a recluse, she felt, and that was saying something about a man that once could charm the pants off of anyone he met, and often had to use it to his advantage after they had accidentally dropped a bottle or set fire to a table.

It worried her, the visible shift between them- she was now far more social than he was, and there was nothing right about that at all.

When he reemerged, she was standing by the fish tank holding her arms close to her chest. He approached her, a hand touching his stomach, the glow from the tank casting an ultramarine light over his already blueish features. She gave a concerned look, motioning to his abdomen, but he waved it off.

"I'm fine," he said. "I just need to lay off the hard stuff for a while, I think."

He moved toward the bed again, but an unexpected stair left him grabbing the wall for balance.

When she turned and he was holding the wall for dear life, she rolled her eyes, and it was stupid but she felt twenty-three again. She laughed at the incredulous look on his face, his brow ridges furrowed and his mandibles splayed at odd angles and the skin around his eyes pulled wide. She cackled and grabbed at his shirt, pulling it up, up, over his shoulders, over his head, tossing it to the side. He let out a laugh too and, still feeling brave from the liquor, snaked a hand behind her head and leaned in.

And she still tasted like he remembered, all soft and velvety, the minty tang of her toothpaste lingering, and the lips, _man_ those lips were so pliable and foreign pressed to his own but there was everything right with how they made his heart pound. When they pulled apart, she gave him a surprised look. He dropped his gaze to the floor.

"… Sorry."

But she shook her head and, with a quick pull to the front of his cowl, brought his mouth to hers again. With the ease and grace of royalty she led him down the steps again, stopping her fluid motions only to seat him on the edge of the bed, and straddle herself on top, facing him, arms snaked around his neck as his found her waist.

And tried as he might to picture Telsa Radnar splayed on that bed beneath him, he knew it didn't feel right. He opened his eyes and drank her in- a five-fingered hand in his, blunted white teeth behind luscious lips, and a spread of red curls splayed across the sheets.


End file.
